CHRISTMAS IN BROWN COUNTY. INDIANA

Christmas in Nashville, Indiana, 8 x 18 inch ink drawing by George C. Clark   AVAILABLE

We celebrated Christmas with a mini-reunion with my siblings in Brown County, Indiana.  One sister didn't come, but those who did had a splendid holiday.  We stayed at the Abe Martin Lodge in Brown County State Park, which I highly recommend, and not just because it is named after the great newspaper cartoon character created by Indianapolis writer/artist Kin Hubbard.  Christmas morning we went into the nearby town of Nashville.  It was overcast but unseasonably warm-- almost 50 degrees.  I made this on-site drawing across a 2-page spread in my sketchbook.  After working on it about half an hour I had to put my gloves on to finish it, making this the second piece of artwork I created wearing gloves.  The first was a watercolor of the Grand Canyon I painted from the South Rim one December.

The big gingerbread Victorian at the right once housed the John Dillinger Museum, a remarkable collection of artifacts, memorabilia, and ephemera telling the story of the notorious 1930s bank robber.  I wonder what happened to the collection after the museum closed.  At the left is the biggest sycamore tree I have ever seen.  I bet it was already growing there when George Rogers Clark (no relation) drove the British out of Indiana and Illinois and in fact all the territory between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes during the American Revolution.